A day in the race: 9th June

By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982

The Labour Party now has its final five leadership candidates – and it’s a broader field than initially expected. The left, women and BME voters will now be represented in the race – but most of the diversity is thanks to one candidate only – and she still went to Cambridge.

DIANE ABBOTT today surged from 11 nominations to 33, meeting the threshold almost exactly on time. Indeed for a couple of minutes after 12.30pm the party website showed Abbott on 32 nominations, one short – but she was duly nominated, even if it did take the support of one David Miliband to get her over the line.

Having seemed in a very difficult position yesterday, Abbott turned things around today – confounding the naysayers (LabourList amongst them) who said only yesterday that Diane would struggle to be on the ballot. We said yesterday that it would take an avalanche of support on the final day – and that’s exactly what happened.

JOHN MCDONNELL however must take much of the credit for Abbott making the ballot. By standing down, albeit at the last moment, he allowed the Hackney North MP to pick up most of his supporters. Allied with some last minute arm twisting from Team Abbott, David Miliband, and other party dignitaries (allegedly including passing nomination forms around during PMQs), his actions helped get Diane through to the next stage of the contest.

McDonnell appeared on Sky News today to explain his decision saying:

“we’ve shot ourselves in the foot….we won’t have genuine debate”

Before stepping down McDonnell had 16 nominations, and looked like having little chance of making it through to the next round – now he has at least influenced the debate as we move forward to the next round of the election.

ANDY BURNHAM, was the other candidate to reach the threshold for nominations on deadline day. However compared to Abbott, Burnham took up his place with relative comfort – reaching the 33 nominations barrier before PMQs, and thus avoiding any last minute panics.
Burnham announced today, as expected, that his campaign will be based in the North West (where his roots, constituency, and most of his nominations lie). This stands in contrast with all of the other candidates who are London, if not Westminster based. Burnham will surely be looking to focus on this difference as he seeks to maximise his appeal in Labour’s northern heartlands.

ED MILIBAND wrote this morning in for the Mirror on inequality – and said that he would maintain the 50p top rate of income tax in an attempt to halt the increase in income disparity between the richest and poorest in society. Tonight Ed was greeted at the New Statesman hustings by a small army of supporters outside of the New Statesman debate, whilst tomorrow Ed M is speaking in Leeds at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

ED BALLS had a quiet day today – having already reached the required number of nominations prior to the deadline it is believed that he asked his supporters to throw their support behind Abbott to ensure that she made it onto the ballot paper. Speaking tonight at New Statesman hustings, Balls sought to place himself in the historic tradition of Labour leaders.

DAVID MILIBAND today hosted a livechat on his leadership site – fielding questions on a range of subjects including social media and international obligations. He was also the first of the leadership candidates to email Labour Party members tonight – quoting Robin Cook and promising to be a listening leader, David said:

“We’ll fight the Tories tooth and nail as they try to gerrymander the political system including our link to the Unions. We’ll rebuild, with 1000 future leaders across the length and breadth of Britain trained in community organising, and we’ll double our membership.

We’ll reinforce the vital role that local elected representatives play by welcoming the Leader of Labour’s Councillors to the Shadow Cabinet. And we’ll make sure that Scotland and Wales have an active role in the NEC. “

Total nominations for each candidate at the close of nominations is:

David Miliband — 81
Ed Miliband — 63
Ed Balls — 33
Andy Burnham — 33
Diane Abbott — 33